Gulf of Mexico

Gulf of Mexico

Billions of dollars. That's what's at stake for BP as a result of the damage caused to ecosystems in the Gulf of Mexico from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Five months after the spill was capped, the federal government estimated the marine animal death toll at 6,104 birds, 609 sea turtles, and 100 mammals, including dolphins. But what of the deep-water corals that provide habitat and reproductive grounds for numerous species of fish, shrimp, and crabs?

Penn State's Charles Fisher, professor of biology, will be a featured guest on the BBC World Service Radio weekly discussion program, The Forum, at 7:05 a.m. Eastern time on Saturday, Sept. 22. Fisher joins Australian author M.L. Stedman and German conductor Alexander Liebreich for a wide-ranging discussion on Isolation. Fisher focuses on isolation of ecosystems around hydrothermal vents in the deep sea, personal experiences with lengthy research cruises, and expeditions on the sea floor. The program, titled "Isolation," also will be archived online beginning on Sunday, Sept. 23, at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p004kln9. A preview of the show is online now at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00y2wtv. The Forum is heard weekly by 180 million listeners worldwide.

A research project deep in the Gulf of Mexico, led by Penn State University Professor of Biology Charles Fisher, the project's lead scientist, and James Brooks of TDI Brooks International, the project's manager, has been honored with the Excellence in Partnership award by the National Oceanographic Partnership Program (NOPP), an organization established by the U.S. Congress. The results of the research include new discoveries of coral communities in the deep Gulf of Mexico, new findings on the ecology and population genetics of the deep-water corals and communities, marine archaeological discoveries, and new data on growth rates of corals on oil platforms and shipwrecks. A primary purpose of the work is to gather data that will inform environmental review and decision making for the protection of deep-water corals and other hard-bottom communities in the northern Gulf of Mexico. Photos and more information are online athttp://www.science.psu.edu/news-and-events/2012-news/Fisher8-2012.

Compelling evidence of the impact of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on deep-sea corals will be published online in the Early Edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences during the week beginning March 26. The diverse team of researchers, led by Penn State Professor of Biology Charles Fisher, used a wide range of underwater vehicles, including the research submarine Alvin, to investigate the corals. They also used comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography to determine precisely the source of the petroleum hydrocarbons they found.

Researchers on an expedition in the Gulf of Mexico to view first-hand the possible effects of the oil spill on the sea floor are posting daily reports of their explorations on the Web. Charles Fisher, a biological oceanographer from Penn State, is the chief scientist on this research expedition. The research team's daily updates, photos and videos will be added to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution's (WHOI) "Dive and Discover" website, http://divediscover.whoi.edu until Dec. 14. To follow the activities during the expedition, click on the "Expedition 13" link at the Dive and Discover website.

Penn State Public Broadcasting is offering a television and radio call-in program titled "Inside: The Gulf Oil Spill" with a panel of Penn State experts to discuss the engineering, environmental and economic challenges posed by the April 20 offshore drilling accident in the Gulf of Mexico. The live call-in program airs at 8 p.m. on Thursday, May 6, on WPSU-TV and WPSU-FM.

Hundreds of meters beneath the surface of the Gulf of Mexico there is a lake.

"This brine pool is so dense," says biologist Chuck Fisher, "that when you come down onto it in a submarine, you bump. You float. Little ripples spread out. It's a very surreal experience."

Fisher is an expert on symbiosis, the state in which two life forms are fully intertwined. What draws him down to the briny pool are the mussel beds on its edges — mussels that have methane-eating bacteria packing their gills "like eggs in an Easter basket."